E-Publishing and "Picard's Syndrome"
Cergorach
The Laughing One
d20Dwarf said:So I have to spend $200+ and then pay more for my books? Yeah, I can see the idea taking off any day now.
You said that digital books where still light years away, a light year is pretty far, i'm just saying that 'digital books' are here now and are affordable (not cheap or cheaper then).
You want to know why i bought a pda? The primary reason was to read books, the other things were just icing on the cake. When i go to work i have to take public transportation (the bus and the subway), in all it takes an average of an hour to and an hour from work. During that time i tend to read and listen to music, pockets aren't a problem in the bus, but bigger books, like hard covers are. They are big and heavy, i generally don't have the room in my backpack for a big novel, and my backpack is heavy enough with the laptop as it is. Also, people aren't very sociable in the subway, pushing and shoving, they tend to bump a big book out of your hand.
My pda only weighs a couple of hundred grams, instead of a kg+, fits in the palm of my hand, and it's internally lighted.
I'm not saying that reading a book on a pda is for everyone, but for some it's great.
mroberon1972
First Post
I bought an Axim (Dell Pocket PC) and then got one for my wife.
We use it for writing (got a keyboard attachment), then transmit it to my wife for editing. She then sends it back to me for rewrite. Wash, repeat...
It can not only read books, but playback movies, play games, store notes, and run software for any function I might need. Microsoft gives away the software development kit (Visual Basic and C++), and software is growing each day.
The problem: The screen can be broken far to easy (ask anyone who has lost one). The unit also needs power. This means a rechargable battery that lasts 4-8 hours depending on what I'm doing, or a power cord. The item also needs a basic amount of training to use, like driving a car. A book just needs language skills.
Just those three items prevent it from being for everyone.
But I love my PPC.
As A side note, PDFs do not read well in a PPC. This is mostly due to the bulky version of the acrobat software for the pocket pc, but also due to the format.
Mr. Oberon.
We use it for writing (got a keyboard attachment), then transmit it to my wife for editing. She then sends it back to me for rewrite. Wash, repeat...
It can not only read books, but playback movies, play games, store notes, and run software for any function I might need. Microsoft gives away the software development kit (Visual Basic and C++), and software is growing each day.
The problem: The screen can be broken far to easy (ask anyone who has lost one). The unit also needs power. This means a rechargable battery that lasts 4-8 hours depending on what I'm doing, or a power cord. The item also needs a basic amount of training to use, like driving a car. A book just needs language skills.
Just those three items prevent it from being for everyone.
But I love my PPC.
As A side note, PDFs do not read well in a PPC. This is mostly due to the bulky version of the acrobat software for the pocket pc, but also due to the format.
Mr. Oberon.
Flyspeck23
First Post
So, what format would that be?mroberon1972 said:
Cergorach
The Laughing One
The pdf format itself. Imagine a 'normal' pdf at a page size of A4, Acrobat Reader (AR) on the PPC renders it the same way as AR on the PC. You would have to zoom in and scroll from left to right to read a sentence, up and down to read the page, zoom in, zoom out, etc. Nott very handy for reading a book. The solution is to Tag a pdf, but this makes the pdf much larger, and space on a pda is at a premium (these days a little less so with the advent of 256MB+ cards).Flyspeck23 said:
[edit]
So i checked how much bigger those files would get, and it seems i made a boo-boo. I used Cry Havoc (7.23MB), i tagged it in Acrobat 6 Pro and it turned out into a 7.37MB file, not that much larger at all. I find this strange, in the past i tried this with a different file and the document turned out three times as big, maybe it was because i was an old version of Acrobat (5 i believe). A zipped txt file is still a lot smaller...
[/edit]
Even then it's not optimal reading, mostly because images tend to be far to large, navigation tools in the PPC reader aren't up to spec, etc.
[edit]
Navigation still suck though, even when using reflow, text is largely unreadible, only after pressing zoom about a dozen times it will become vaguely readible...
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Flyspeck23
First Post
That's what I thoughtCergorach said:
My question was supposed to be like this: "What exactly is the format/resolution on a PPC (where 1024x768 is the resolution on most PCs nowadays)".
madelf
First Post
I like the idea of Pocket PCs. I hadn't really thought about it before, but I can see myself curling up in a comfy chair to read a book with one of those a lot easier than I can see reading a book on the computer at my desk, or even with a laptop. Could be a lot of potential there.
Now if PDFs don't work well with them, obviously that's an issue.
What would be the ramifications of releasing game books in a different format (rtf maybe) that would still allow for graphics and such, but could re-format to the screen size easily.
We'd have to give up some some visual control, certainly, but it might be worthwhile if it makes the product more usable by the consumer.
Now if PDFs don't work well with them, obviously that's an issue.
What would be the ramifications of releasing game books in a different format (rtf maybe) that would still allow for graphics and such, but could re-format to the screen size easily.
We'd have to give up some some visual control, certainly, but it might be worthwhile if it makes the product more usable by the consumer.
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